All The President's Men Essay

“Nothing's riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country.” Towards the end of the movie, “All the President’s Men”, Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee says this famous quote to his two investigative journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The movie was able to capture Bradlee’s sarcasm in the quote when he says “maybe the future of the country”. This is clearly sarcasm because not only was the first amendment of the Constitution and freedom of the press riding on this investigation the future of the country was as well. Even though, it took Woodward and Bernstein a long time to get answers eventually their investigation into the Watergate scandal
This means that congress cannot pass laws or do anything that would interfere with people’s freedom of speech,religion or press. However, in the watergate scandal people were being forced not to talk, and reporters Woodward and Bernstein were being blocked at every turn. The movie depicted how people were being intimidated into not talking. This caused a problem in the investigation because Woodward and Bernstein could not get anyone to talk. They were then attacked publicly by different political figures that were trying to cover up what Nixon did. Their investigation stalled until Deep throat told them too follow the money. So, Woodward and Bernstein went back to trying to get people to talk by asking different questions. Eventually, they were able to get someone who worked at CREEP to talk, which lead them to the truth about the watergate scandal. Even though Woodward and Bernstein were able to get to the truth the First amendment and the freedom of the press were being attacked at every turn. The government was trying to stop people from talking, and stop reporters from doing their job. If Woodward and Bernstein had let this stop them the government